NB: as reported by “The Star”, a Nairobi Newspaper Banks have been urged to invest in converged governance, risk and compliance functions to save them on major losses in the future especially loss and theft of data and fraud. At the ongoing AITEC Banking conference in Nairobi, participants heard that banks do not yet view these functions as well as information security as strategic investments.

Instead, the costs associated with say setting up a biometric system are seen as too high and better invested elsewhere. Dr. Matunda Nyanchama, a Canada-based consultant, gave the example of Canadian banks that came out of the global financial crisis unscathed because of stringent governance and compliance systems. “Regulation (in Canada) is done to a ‘T’,” Nyanchama said. “When the crisis came, the nation was saved.”

Eric Lusaka, a governance, risk and compliance consultant at PWC Kenya said these related functions tend to be muddled up or lumped together when they should be separately defined. In some organizations, compliance is placed together with risk while in others it is found in a legal and compliance department.

Yet compliance should be used to stringently enforce rules and regulations that should be followed when assessing credit risk and information security. “When problems arise each side says you are responsible,” Lusaka said. Hesham Hamdy, Chief Risk Officer of Arab International Bank of Egypt said such roles should be well defined. “It is better to segregate the duties. The functions are different,” Hamdy said. “I cannot head compliance and audit.” Hamdy said the roles sometimes overlap but that should be seen as an advantage.

Lusaka of PWC advised that banks use an umbrella model that converges information from these different functions together to avoid duplication of duties and the existence of contradicting information about the same issues in one bank. For example, the risk department may have different sets of risks from the Information Security department. Lusaka also identified information security as one area banks have yet to address fully. “Information Security is treated not as a strategic investment but as something nice to do,” said Lusaka. “Something as biometrics is seen as too expensive.”

OUTSOURCING TO AFRICA: A Relative Ranking of 15 Country Locations This is a Commonwealth Business Council (CBC) study of 15 countries resulting in a ranking of their relative readiness. Criteria used include infrastructure, people/skills and business environment. Below is an extract from the report from the report’s overview: “Egypt turns out as the most attractive location in Africa. Egypt will have strong competition from all the others in the infrastructure ready band as all are working hard to improve. Egypt has an edge because ICT is supported and believed in by the leadership and all actions are coordinated. Further with…

Unique mobile subscriber numbers are poised to hit 525 million mark in the year 2020 in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) according to a recent report from GSM Alliance. It is projected that actual connections will be 975 million. It is projected that mobile penetration rate will hit 49% across the region by the year 2020.

This represents an annual compound growth rate of 7% per year and makes SSA the fastest growing region with respect to mobile communications.

The mobile communications sector is a major contributor to the economy employing more than 2.4 million people directly and indirectly creating more than 3.7 million jobs. It is also a major source of tax revenue (approximately U$13 billion annually) for governments. It further generates license and spectrum auction fees for the regulatory agencies across Africa.

Between 2014 and 2014 the sector is expected to contribute up to 6.2% (or U$104 billion) up from 5.2% (or U$75 billion) of the region’s GDP in 2013.

On other hand, operators are expected to inject a total of U$97 billion in capital spending between 2014 and 2020 as they modernize their infrastructure and increase coverage. Infrastructure modernization would be extended rollout of 4G networks, which in turn is expected to see adoption of advanced devices to take advantage of 4G capabilities. It is projected that 40% of all mobile devices will be smartphones. The equivalent figure today is 5.1%.

The sector continues to witness innovation. There is expected to be increased activity in the licensing of Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs). The coming of thin SIM technology would also deliver substantial value added services to the sector.

The report also suggests that policy changes and tax regime adjustments can spur further growth.